2016 Annual Report

Our Faith STO

Annual Report 2016

Thank You
We are filled with gratitude. In 2016, the "Our Faith, Our Children, Our Future School Tuition Organization" had yet another exceptional year. Your faithful and ongoing support raised more than five million dollars for student scholarships.

Our Faith, Our Children, Our Future School Tuition Organization (STO) is a charitable organization representing all of the Catholic K-12 schools in the Archdiocese of Dubuque and St. Paul’s Lutheran School in Waverly. The STO receives voluntary cash contributions from Iowa taxpayers and allocates those funds in tuition grants to Iowa school children, who in turn, use those grants to attend one of the schools represented by the STO. At least 90% of the money received by the STO must go back out in tuition grants.

For nearly 150 years, the Church has taught that parents have the right and the responsibility to serve as the primary educators of their children. To assist them in this sacred duty, the Church has articulated clearly that children have the universal right to an education in faith, and the state has the fundamental obligation to enable such a right. Through both written word and live witness, the Church has advanced parental choice as a fundamental part of its mission to protect the equality of educational opportunity that is the birthright of all children. Since the passage of the first parental choice program in Milwaukee in 1990, bishops and state Catholic conferences have been among the most important advocates for parental choice.